If you’ve been on Instagram as long as we have, you remember the good old days when your feed was simply, chronological. It’s been years since then, and we’ve all mourned the pre-algorithm days before three accounts dominated your timeline. It looks like that’s all about to change, for the better.
As it turns out, the social media platform is testing out a new feature that’ll bring us one step closer to actually having control over who’s content you want plastered all over your feed.
Think of it as your ‘close friends’ list, but better. Instagram is working to give its users the option to select which users’ content you want prioritized—so you can make sure you’re up-to-date with whomever you prefer.
As it stands, users have no clear level of control over which accounts they interact with due to its current algorithm, which for years has been a point of criticism for the Facebook-owned platform. The platform has also recently been accused of shadow-banning certain accounts. As we saw in recent months, many users claimed that accounts and posts relating to Palestine were put on the backburner by the app and not showing up on feeds, if not totally banned.
Instagram denied the shadow-banning allegations. But this new feature—which is set to be called ‘Favorites’—should be able to circumvent the problem none-the-less, as you’d simply choose a list of accounts and the platform will propel their posts to the top of your feed, regardless of the algorithm.
